For this there are two reasons. The one is that a large number of the chief writers of Latin literature are not themselves of unmixed Latin birth; they possess Celtic blood, or Greek blood, or some other non-Roman strain. Virgil came from Mantua, Catullus from Verona, Horace from Venusia, and other writers from other northern, southern, or even Spanish towns. The second reason is that, before Roman literature had properly earned the name, it had come into contact with the fully developed art of Greece, both Attic and Alexandrian, and forthwith became a literature of imitation. Feeling its limitations, the Latin genius submitted its own tendencies to the correction of a people whom it instinctively recognized as superior in this domain. But here an important qualification must be made. It cannot be too much insisted upon that Latin literature hardly rose at all till Greek literature was far decayed. Unhappily, when the Roman writers set about imitating their masters, they exploited, it is true, the matter or substance of anything Greek, and of any period, but the style and form which they affected were rather those of the later and inferior Greeks of Alexandria, not those of the perfect earlier masters of Attica and Ionia. It is in any case easier to imitate what is affected or “loud” or artificial than what is simply and naturally strong and beautiful. Latin literature, in the sense in which we are to treat it, may be divided into three main periods. The first is that of immature art, of vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek models, of growing mastery over language. It is a period of preparation, the “iron age,” corresponding roughly to the period of English literature before the Revival of Learning. The date of this epoch is from 250 to 80 B.C., and it embraces the best days of the republic. During all this time the literature, rough and poor as it was, was sincere enough. It was meant for the people and for a purpose. For us, however, it contains little of any consequence besides the comedies of Plautus and Terence.